Pilots typically rely on both ground references and instruments when navigating from one point to another. Aircraft flying at 35,000 feet generally rely more on instruments while aircraft flying close to the ground typically rely more on ground references. During approach and landing, they may rely more on ground references if the weather permits.
The approach to landing and touch down on the runway of an aircraft is probably the most challenging task a pilot undertakes during normal operation. To perform the landing properly, the aircraft approaches the runway within an envelope of attitude, course, speed, and rate of descent limits. The course limits include, for example, both lateral limits and glide slope limits. An approach outside of this envelope can result in an undesirable positioning of the aircraft with respect to the runway, resulting in possibly discontinuance of the landing attempt.
In some instances visibility may be poor during approach and landing operations. Images taken from an on-board camera are displayed to the aircrew for reference, providing a better understanding of the environment ahead of the aircraft. As the aircraft closes on the runway, the pilot may reference both the display and the actual view outside of the aircraft.
The next generation of aircraft synthetic vision systems, or display systems in general, will use photo realistic textures on the terrain and other three dimensional objects such as buildings. However, Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) images, for example, from an InfraRed camera, typically produce video output of lower resolution with substantial image noise, often due to inherent limitation of both device, physics, and external conditions, thereby impeding a pilot's recognition and understanding of the object or objects being displayed leading to significant target recognition and high training requirements for flight crews. One approach to improve image quality is to use an averaging or super-resolution approach in which image features may be extracted, sub-pixel-shifted, and averaged. Although such enhancing approaches can produce significantly improved images with increased resolution and feature definition, they typically introduce significant delays detrimental to aircraft control, particularly when such EVS images are presented onto a heads-up-display or a heads-down primary flight display for approach and landing operations. Because of the delay introduced by the enhancing process, the video (or images) displayed on the screen were equivalent to the images taken at an earlier time, for example, approximately 1 to 2 seconds earlier, when the aircraft was further away from the target. Therefore, the images displayed are not current.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a method and system for displaying clearer enhanced and synthetic vision system images in real time. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.